Winter Gardening

Gardening in winter requires a belief in the future.  Often in early morning frost covers the lawn and the grey leaves on the dianthus walk glisten, but by mid-morning the garden looks alive.  Plants, bent low because of the extra weight of ice, straighten and stalks that supported opened flowers do so again.  Crocuses that close at night, open fully as the sun rises. We return to the projects of the week, which at this season are mostly in the woods.  We pull unwanted trees in the maple garden.  We remove ivy from trees by pulling, digging or cutting. And, this year, we began to restore our first hellebore slope.  After only a few years of neglect, several paths were invisible, covered with ivy, creeping charlie, and unwanted hellebore seedlings.  Slowly we found the hidden cedar logs, which border the paths and cleared off the weedy growth.  A plant in the wrong place really is a weed!  As we have done in years past, we resolved to cut off all seed stalks from most hellebores.  Our excitement came as we rediscovered plants, we believed had been crowded out of the garden. 

We exclaimed over the emerging tips of mid-season snowdrops and found daffodils already above ground and in bloom.  Clumps of daffodils in the lawn, on a south-facing slope, and in the rock garden have flowers and more buds ready to open.  We pollinated our favorite forms, expecting to increase our display more quickly and perhaps find some variation in form and color by sowing the seeds when ripe.  By the end of most days we have visited all of our gardens accompanied by the incredible fragrance of Chimonanthus praecox.